Wednesday, April 27, 2005

They deal with a theory by Black Conservative commentator Thomas Sewell on the origins of some rather dysfunctional elements of black culture. I don't have the specific knowledge to support or refute his theories, but thought some of you might well find them interesting. ## In general, however, I say a resounding: "black ghetto culture contains some horrifically dysfunctional aspects." There. I said it. This doesn't mean that they were not, and are not subjected to damage. If you examined a forty-five year old adult who was sorely abused for the first thirty years of his life, you would expect to find dysfunctional behaviors, negative believes, crushingly distorted self-image. Well, American blacks were enslaved for three hundred years, and free for about 150--the same rough proportion. If there were not DEEP problems, we would be super-people. And we're not. We're just people. My belief is that the primary difference between groups is their software, not their hardware. And too damned many black Americans are running crappy software. Then again, they didn't write it, did they? Then again, that's irrelevant: it is their responsibility to upgrade. ## Another comment. On one of the blogs, there is a typical comment about "politically correct" language. I am so disgusted by the hijacking of that term, the implication that language, and news, and culture are only "politically correctly" slanted to the left. This is just an absolute lie. I have seen countless movies where anything non-white or non-American was presented as sub-standard. this is what the audience at the time wanted to see, and that was a clear slanting to some of the more hierarchical elements on the right. Movies where the domination of the environment was presented as good and right, where Biblical story-telling was presented as historical fact, where the founding fathers were presented as flawless paragons, etc. etc. etc. ## But the ONLY time you hear the term "Politically Correct" is in a criticism of the Left. For God's sake, people. Both sides have their flaws. Domination by EITHER side would be disasterous. Wake the hell up, or we're in trouble.

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About Me

For the last thirty years or so I’ve been a lecturer, coach, novelist and television writer. For the last forty years I’ve been involved variously in the martial arts, and for all my life I’ve studied and enjoyed yoga. Not that I worked at it as hard and honestly as I should have—I’d be a combination of BKS Iyengar and Bruce Lee if I had.
After publishing about three million words of science fiction (including the New York Times bestsellers The Legacy of Heorot and The Cestus Deception) and having about twenty hours of produced television shows (including The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Andromeda, and Stargate, as well as four episodes of the immortal Baywatch), I’ve got opinions on the writing life.
After earning black belts in Judo and Karate, and practicing the Indonesian art of Pentjak Silat Serak for the last fifteen, well, I have some opinions there, as well. And having struggled to live consciously since childhood...well, those opinions are probably strongest of all.